


The Statue

by Liethe



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liethe/pseuds/Liethe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Hammer's statue in the Caring Hands shelter is replaced, but a series of improbable accidents occur to knock it down. Who is behind the accidents, and why?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Statue

They replaced the statue. There was no ceremony, no great unveiling. After what happened at the last one, no one had wanted to risk attracting the attention of Dr. Horrible, so the powers that be just quietly erected another statue of Captain Hammer in the middle of the Caring Hands homeless shelter, and turned – with some relief – away from the whole messy business and back to their terribly important lives. What had been intended as a quick and easy bit of good publicity during an election season had already used up too much of their valuable time.

If only they'd known how much trouble that shelter had yet to cause, they wouldn't have bothered with the statue at all. They would have leveled the shelter and built the parking lot they'd planned in the first place.

The residents of the shelter treated the statue of Captain Hammer with approximately the same level of respect as the man himself now received, following his spectacular defeat and subsequent breakdown. Improbable facial hair was drawn on its face in permanent marker, and trash wedged into its outstretched hands. People draped wet laundry over it to dry, or stuck posters and notes to each other all over it.

Still, even the most artistically irreverent of them never intended any real harm, and so it was a surprise when a thunderous crash broke the early morning hush one Tuesday in September, and the statue was found in a heap of pock-marked rubble. A brief and grudging investigation on behalf of the city found that the combination of laundry detergent, solvents and cleaning fluids, and assorted detritus the statue had accumulated must have combined to cause a freak chemical reaction which had weakened the stone until it broke up under its own weight. The whole affair was ruled an accident – after all, no one with the strength to do such a thing would waste their time on petty vandalism - and exasperated city officials replaced the statue once more.

The next accident to befall the unfortunate statue was far less mysterious. An inept delivery man accidentally drove a heavily-laden trolley into the statue, knocking it from its pedestal. It shattered when it hit the ground, and had to be replaced, yet again. It wasn't really that strange that no one remembered what the delivery man had looked like – who paid attention to people like that anyway? - and everyone was agreed that it was definitely an accident. That they all agreed this with exactly the fervor one would expect from people under the influence of a mind control ray was never noticed, since everyone who had the experience to recognise that was far too important to go anywhere near a case this minor.

From intense yet exceptionally localised earthquakes, to freak wild animal attacks, even the longest lasting version of the statue didn't make it to a month, but since no one was ever hurt in these accidents, and buying a new statue was always cheaper than properly investigating the fate of the old ones, and less embarrassing than admitting that they had no idea what was going on, cheques kept being written, and statues kept being erected and torn down. The mayor lost his re-election campaign, and the one bright point of light he found in that career-ending defeat was that people would stop bugging him about the damn statue.

 * 

“Ah, Doctor Horrible, we meet again.”

Captain Hammer winced as put down the pick-axe. Even his voice sounded tired, and he could see that his nemesis had noticed his weakness. It wasn't easy, finding time to plan and carry out these midnight raids on the homeless shelter while trying to hold down a normal job. He hated retail, but no one was interested in a superhero who couldn't even save his own girlfriend, and without adoring masses and corporate sponsorship, the superhero gig wasn't really a viable career plan.

He'd sold the Hammer Cycle, and the Ham-jet, sold his elegant mansion with its top-secret underground base, but even after all that, he'd only been able to afford a few months rent at the crappy apartment he'd moved into before he had to find an alternative source of income.

“Captain Hammer,” Doctor Horrible replied, his voice as steely and assured as Hammer's used to be, “you won't stop me from destroying this statue.”

“Stop you?” Captain Hammer laughed, “what do you think the pick-axe is for? I'm here for the same reason you are.”

Doctor Horrible's eyes widened in surprise. He knew that someone else besides him had been destroying statues – and a good thing too, since coming up with so many different “accidents” took up a lot of his time, and that was time that he just didn't have since joining the Evil League of Evil – but he had assumed that it was the residents of the homeless shelter where Penny had spent so many hours volunteering. The last person he expected to find tearing down statues of Captain Hammer was the man himself.

He realised with a start that he hadn't seen, or even heard news of Captain Hammer in months. It was difficult, when trying to make a good impression in a new job, to find time for old nemeses, but he had never expected that the reason he hadn't seen the superhero was that he was a hero no more. Seeing Captain Hammer in a Hot Topic uniform was almost obscene, like seeing Bad Horse hitched up to a wagon.

“Why are you destroying your own statue?”

“Because it shouldn't be me up there. This was never my idea, it was never my crusade. I did it to impress someone who...” his voice broke, “... someone who didn't live long enough to be impressed. It shouldn't be me.”

“So why didn't you just say something? Surely they can't use your image if you don't agree.”

“They wouldn't listen to me anymore, and besides, the royalties I get from the damn thing are the only thing keeping me from having to move in here myself.”

“Things are that bad?” Doctor Horrible was shocked by how bad he felt. He had longed to see his nemesis brought low, yearned to see him suffer, and now that he had his wish it had turned to ash in his hands.

“No one wants me any more. The hero's guild kicked me out. It turns out that a life of beating up bad guys doesn't really come with qualifications, or a retirement plan.”

“They kicked you out?”

“I guess the good guys aren't always so good, after all.”

“I guess not.” Doctor Horrible gave his ex-nemesis a searching look. “I think I have an idea.”

 * 

It was strange, how the rash of accidents stopped when some anonymous – and oddly forgettable – intern suggested that, rather than using the likeness of a discredited ex-hero, the statue in the Caring Hands shelter should be of the conveniently photogenic volunteer who had sadly not lived to see her dream become a reality. Penny's statue stood long and proudly in the shelter, giving hope to everyone who passed her.

Doctor Horrible, apparently feeling the pressure of becoming one of the youngest ever villains to be made a member of the Evil League of Evil, started to be seen with a mysteriously-masked sidekick, known only as Corporate Tool.

Captain Hammer was never seen again. Or, everyone assumed that he wasn't. No one really cared enough to look.

 


End file.
